Introduction

I, Gringa, have two cats. They have been a permanent fixture in my home for several years. All three of us were happily situated with the stability of our lives for quite some time. I, and the cats (who are well known for being creatures of habit), feared change to a certain extent. Apart from our happy household, I also wished for a male companion of the human variety. I had many qualifications for said male, and among them was a desire for him to share my enjoyment of my feline friends.

We cannot have everything we want.

Meet Latino. He shared his distaste for cats upon one of our initial meetings.

I promptly disqualified him.

Yet we continued to get to know each other as friends and dancing partners. A mutual attraction developed over a matter of a couple of years. Before meeting the cats he said he was allergic. From my personal experience, I am aware that allergies cause some kind of reaction: sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes, etc. When Latino met them he was asymptomatic. He thought maybe my cats were hypoallergenic. I thought that was interesting being that I have never seen a Himalayan (with hair nearly as long as mine) on any hypoallergenic list. I concluded it was his psychological manifestation to avoid being around cats. He complained about them plenty but was insistent enough that he wanted to be with me. Two years later, we are married.

He knew what he was getting into. Love me, love my cats. Simple as that.

We are still working on this harmonious relationship.

One of my goals in this collection of writings is to bring forth enough evidence to prove to Latino that he does, in fact, love the cats. I am certain the evidence is there; he just needs it to be spelled out for him.